Last Friday I went ahead and ordered my first batch of Entoforms from Shapeways. Also I ordered the nessecary Entomological supplies from Vermandel. And… wow… Vermandel is quick. Yesterday I received the package from them already!
As you can see I ordered a bunch of things.
- A box to present insects in (with a special board as background for pinning the bugs to)
- A little wooden block to make sure everything is always pinned at the right height (and the labels are spaced equally along the needle)
- Two types of needles (long and medium). Apparently the long ones are actually too long for the box… but I could cut them down if need be.
- And lastly a whole stack of preprinted labels. These take the name of the entoform/place of discovery/genus/date and so forth. I’m missing the red labels for the Holotype, but I’ll find them.
The labels are a whole study by themselves. The people at Naturalis told me all about them. A few basic bits of information should always be on there.
- Whose the sample is (in this case my name)
- The country/place where the creature is found (in my case ‘created’)
- The date the creature was found, and here you note it like 13 II 2011. The month is noted in “roman numerals” That way the imperial and metric people don’t get confused.
- Then you may want to add a red label for the Holotype. The Holotype is the creature that “defines” the type. If you want to know if an animal is of a certain species… you compare it to the Holotype.
- In the past creatures found in the Netherlands were labeled with a green label.
- Vermandel also has labels just to show whether the creature is male or female. I don’t really need that I think, but it’s fun/cheap so I ordered them too.
The one thing I have to check still is the paper of the labels that I got. The scientists use paper based on Cotton in stead of wood because it lasts much longer. I’m not sure which I’ve got… I’ll have to ask.
I should be getting the first Entoforms in a week at most… I can’t wait!!!
